Milometry vs Tripcatcher

What Tripcatcher does well

Tripcatcher is the rival on this page that we take most seriously on price, and it is built by people who clearly understand UK bookkeeping.

It publishes into your accounting system. Tripcatcher pushes mileage expenses straight into Xero, Dext and Crunch, or out to Excel and PDF. If your books already live in Xero, that is a genuinely shorter path than exporting a CSV from us and importing it yourself.

It works out the VAT. A mileage claim has a reclaimable VAT element on the fuel portion, and working it out by hand is fiddly and easy to get wrong. Tripcatcher does it for you. We do not, and for a VAT registered business that is a real gap.

It is aimed at accountants. The Partner plan exists because bookkeepers run it across a client list. That is a good sign about the shape of the output: it is built to be handed to somebody who checks it.

It is cheap. £1.49 a month is the lowest subscription on this page by a wide margin.

What it costs

£1.49 a month plus VAT, or £15.00 a year plus VAT, for one person. The Partner plan is £1.49 per user a month plus VAT, with a two user minimum. There is a fourteen day trial.

Note the VAT. £15.00 a year plus VAT is £18.00, and every figure they publish is exclusive.

Where we think the trade goes the other way

This is the closest call on the site, and it turns entirely on time.

Milometry is £9.99 once. Tripcatcher is £18.00 a year with VAT. So we are cheaper in the first year, and after five years the gap is around £80. That is real money but it is not the landslide it is against the £96 a year apps, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

The difference that lasts is ownership. Their log lives on their servers behind a subscription; ours is a file on your phone with no account attached. Stop paying Tripcatcher and you stop being able to read the evidence behind claims you have already made. Buy ours and the log stays readable whatever happens to us.

Where Tripcatcher is genuinely better

The Xero and Dext integration. If your books are in Xero, this is the shorter path and we are not going to argue.

VAT on mileage. They calculate it. We do not.

The web app. They have one. We do not.

Accountant workflows. If a bookkeeper is running your mileage across a client list, Tripcatcher is designed for exactly that and we are designed for one person's phone.

Where we think we are better

It records the drive by itself. Tripcatcher has GPS tracking and an Add Trip form built on Google Maps, which means a good deal of the time you are telling it about a journey. Milometry notices you drove and has the trip waiting. If your problem is forgetting to log, that difference is the whole product.

Fuel. We track fill ups and work out your real economy, so a journey can be costed against what your car actually does rather than the brochure figure. Tripcatcher is a mileage claim tool and does not do this.

No account, no server, no subscription.

Which one you should pick

Pick Tripcatcher if you are VAT registered, if your books are in Xero or Dext, or if an accountant is handling your mileage. Those are good reasons and £18 a year is not much to pay for them.

Pick Milometry if you want the drive recorded without being asked, you want fuel costs in the same place, and you would rather own the app than rent it.